Beware of scammers telling stories, police warn

Authorities urge people to be skeptical of calls and emails from strangers.

Neal Simpson The Patriot Ledger @nsimpson_ledger

Neal Simpson

The Patriot Ledger

Fri Jan 24, 2014, 07:49 PM

A Hingham man answered his phone Saturday and was told that his brother had been kidnapped after getting into a car crash.

Then on Wednesday, a Rockland man received a call from someone claiming to be an Internal Revenue Service agent who said the man could go to jail for filing his taxes improperly. On Thursday, a caller told a Hingham grandmother that her grandson had been arrested and needed bail money to get out of jail.

All three calls turned out to be scams and the con artists who attempted them never got a penny from their intended target. But many other scams just like them have worked: In Revere, police arrested two people this month who prosecutors believe could be responsible for "kidnapping scams" in six Boston-area cities and towns.

That scam, which has also been reported on the South Shore, is just one of several ploys that con artists use every day to scare, trick and cajole people into handing over their money. Some, like the kidnapping scam, pray on the victim's fear and desperation, while others, like the sweepstakes scam, rely on greed and gullibility.

In other cases, con artists look to exploit their victim's generosity. Several South Shore police departments have recently reported scammers claiming to be collecting donations on behalf of local civic groups or even police departments themselves.

In the Revere case, police say someone called a woman last month and told her that her daughter was in a car crash and had been kidnapped by a violent fugitive. Prosecutors say surveillance images later showed Jose Carrasquillo and Jennifer Rodriguez picking up the $1,000 the mother wired to secure her daughter's release.

Hingham police said a Hingham man was told an almost identical story by a scammer who called him Saturday – two days after Carrasquillo and Rodriquez were arrested. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the two were acting alone or as part of a larger enterprise, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said.

Whatever form they take, authorities say telephone scams are very difficult to trace and prosecute, in part because the con artist is often hundred or thousands of miles from the victim. Investigators are also flooded daily with reports of phone scams, most of them resulting in relatively small financial loses or no loss at all.

"Our office fields hundreds of inquiries pertaining to scams each year and can help direct consumers to the appropriate agency to file a complaint," Jillian Fennimore, spokeswoman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, said in a statement. "We want to educate the public as much as possible to protect their personally identifiable information, and urge consumers to ask questions, exercise caution, and simply hang up the phone if they believe they have been engaged in a scam. A reputable caller will understand the need to safeguard your identity."

Local police are able to investigate whether a call from a government agency or bank is legitimate, but the investigation often ends there.

"Typically, when we call the number, nobody picks up because they probably have a caller ID, or as soon as we say it's the police, they hang up," said Rockland Lt. Nicholas Zeoli.

There are several state and federal agencies people can call if they think they've received a scam call – including the state attorney general's office, the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission – but authorities say the best bet to is to be skeptical of any call, text or email from someone you don't know.

"If it's something out of the ordinary, that should send up a red flag," Zeoli said. "You don't have to send money to anyone immediately."

Reach Neal Simpson at nesimpson@ledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @NSimpson_Ledger.